The earth fell silent and still around me,falling heavily onto my shouldersas if it had suddenly stopped turning.Light glinted off of the metal and glass,and heat still fell from from sun's rays,but I felt as if each sight had frozen for a moment,just so I could experience it properly.Even the birds had left off the next notes in their songs,leaving a long pause stretch in their wakes.

They dazzle your eyes,and fill your mind with visions of a fairyland forest.Fireflies cover every spare inch,and the fairfolk fill the air,with their shimmering wings,like floating glitter on the breeze.Their voices sound like the tinkling of sleigh-bells and Christmas carols,carrying on the wind throughout their woodland abode,so you hear them,even if their wings are only pale glimmers through row upon row of trees.

The touch of a hand on your shoulder pulls you back-back into reality,and your eyes once again see the lights as electric,strung together on one long wire,glimmering in the night because of the technological prowess of the human race,not the glimmer of fireflies and fey.

The worlds outside my eyes,are ever-changing and ever-moving.The clouds drift from grey, to white, and black again,and the wind from strong to still.

The person that you see before you,is never the same, from moment to moment.Even my face creases and twitches,pools of sorrow, happiness, and observance shift around in my eyes,and the lines in my hands slowly deepen.Through my sight,the world changes.A kind word builds friendships,while callousness and hatred will burn them down in funeral piers.As the days go on,experiences and memories gather and build up,creating lenses for us to see through,though some eventually fade away.

I hope that these days and happinesses are branded on my mind,because the friends and family that I have now,are those that I wish to hold to my heart forever.

When depression and struggling health plague those we love,They are never far removed from our thoughts.

My eyes close,and I am drifting from memory to imagination and back,drifting among the currents of my unconsciousness.But my son’s voice pulls me away from my own mind.He’s yelling and screaming. His voice cracks, but he doesn’t stop.Words tear roughly out of his throat,and I hear him.

I see him standing there, just outside my door,Tears cover his face, and he stands frozen in the rain.He smiles when he sees me.And he falls into my arms, ice caking his lips and eyelashes.All I can feel is the cold from his skin stabbing into me.Then my eyes open and I’m crying and moaning,Gasping at the fading chill.

The screen of my phone glows from beside me and my son’s name looks up at me.3 am, and he needs to talk.No hesitation. I’m calling him.And he tells me about feeling lost and hopeless,Running out into the cold Boston rain and screaming until his throat hurts,Asking for help, for anything to stop his hurting.

​I don’t understand what’s happened.From states away, I heard my boy’s cries for help.Through a dream, or a vision, or something without a name, I heard him.Even with the world separating us,A part of our hearts will reach out and find those who can help.

The moon has faded from the sky,leaving darkness and shadow to obscure the earth.The birds cry frantically,at the drawn-out absence of the light.Their panicked twitters and caws echo between buildings,but not to any human ears.

That species which 'rules' this earth,sleeps soundly in their beds,unaware, and comfortable in their belief of a rising sun each morn.

Other creatures begin to pick up on the avians' anxiety,and add their cries to the growing cacophony.But the humans yet sleep.

No new light begins to shine,nothing rises above the nearby hills to chase away the shadows.

The fauna starts to panic,bringing the noise to a higher and louder pitch,as they fear for the worst.The sun would not rise,as it did day after day,and the darkness would trap them forever.They huddle away, fear clouding instinct,as they await whatever is to come.

But right as hope is leaving the last creature,the shadows begin stretching themselves,slowly away from the hills,and the light begins to seep back into the world.The creatures’ cries turn from hopelessness to gratefulness,as their fears are hidden away with the darkness.

And as the humans finally begin to awake from their beds,all they can think about,is getting the stupid animals to shut up.

Why can’t I get your voice out of my head?It would be easier if all of it was the horrible stuff.The sounds of you screaming, throwing things or people to the ground.The moments where all I could do was crawl under a blanket, or in a corner,and try to pretend that I didn’t exist.

It would be better if I didn’t have the good memories.Of you taking me to the theater, watching my soccer games and choirconcerts, or singing along to showtunes with me in the car.

It would be so much easier if this world was just black and white,And if monsters and people could never be one in the same.Greyscale sucks.

I wish that it were easier to let go.Ignoring the traumas of the past,Letting the weights drop free of your shoulders,And wafting up into the clear night sky.

I wish it was as easy as,writing the event down on a piece of paper and burning it,Or putting its description in a lantern,and setting it free.

I wish that leaving the past behind was that easy.Forgetting the events that still flash in front of your eyes and send you shivering, or sobbing.Or pushing out the people in your life who have hurt you,and just letting them fade off into the distance,never to trouble your thoughts again.

The clouds are calling out to each other overhead,anger flashing between them,and the remnants of their words crashing down on us in a cacophony.

Sometimes I wonder what they must be arguing about,or if some of it is just a show of force to those of us on the ground.Reasons for us to not taunt those beyond our understanding,and so far up above our heads.

They must have really high opinions of themselves,or they wouldn’t be so loud when they speak.I think they like the attention that a flash of light or a cracking boom getsthem.

Or maybe they’re just lonely up there,and want to be seen again,since cloudwatching has become such a lost pastime lately.They miss the admiring eyes of those on the ground looking up,and seeing amazing shapes and creatures in their midst.

You’re still not listening.I feel like I’ve been saying this for months,shrieking like a train whistle,scribbling with my pen on the paper until blood and ink cover the page.But still nothing.

You ask me what I want,and I tell you.Space, time to think, time to process, time to figure out how to tell you the things I’m feeling.And you say, okay. Like you understand.But soon enough, you’re pressing for more.Asking how you can fix things,how we can be friends again,the way we were before.But I’m telling you,We can’t.There’s been too much broken, shattered, torn, shredded, lit aflame.

I’m telling you,that I feel like I’m talking to my dad again.Sending letters of verse and prose alike,but having no effect.

You’re still not listening.You say that you want to respect the boundaries I’ve put in place.Then, in the next sentence,you say that you don’t think they’re working,that you want to do something different,that your plan is better.You’re afraid that the time I am taking for myself is turning me against you.Well, if that is the result of me thinking about the situation, and thinking about you and me,then you have to accept that.Because it means that I’m learning to be myself, listen to myself.I can look at all the contradictions and backsteps that you take via texts,and I can see the manipulation. Even if you can’t.

I will not deny that we’ve had good times.I’m not going to lie about that.It would be easier if we hadn’t.Then I could just walk away and not feel like my insides are being clawed out as I write this.But now, after all this,I can’t listen to you, or get a text from you, without questioning the purpose behind every word.My rose-tinted glasses are shattered,and I can’t go back to seeing only what you want me to, instead of what’s actually in front of me.

I was having a wonderful night so far,hours into a sleep that might’ve actually been refreshing.Until, that is, I felt the tickling sensation traveling across the bare skin of my back,from the center of my spine up to my shoulder.Drowsiness slowing my mind and body,I brushed away my hair that curtained down behind me,thinking that would banish the sensation.Settling my eyes shut again,I laid my cheek against the pillow,thinking now I could go back to sleep.After barely any respite,the feeling of tiny legs crawling along my arm shook me awake once more.With blurred eyes, I opened them and watched as an eight-legged intruder scrambled down my arm.In a flurry of disgust and fury, I sent it flying,and it dropped to my sheet with a blow single blow.I swept it into a glass and fled my room,refusing it its freedom.Before it could escape on its own,it was floating in the toilet bowl.The sound of the water draining into hidden pipes was the only time the twilight silence had been broken.I’d made not a peep during the whole ordeal.I returned to my warm bed, the conquering hero.But every few minutes,I awoke to that phantom sensation, alert as I was to it.Sleep evaded me that night,thanks to the eight-legged intruder.